Crazy 'Bout Greens

Stubby, short grass with generous mud is not a chicken banquet.  My gals like their greens.  They like them lush and generous.  This time of year the lawn in the hen pen is sparse, not lush.

If all children loved green vegetables the way these hens do, there would be no McDonald's, and Burger King would not stand a chance.  Can you imagine:  Super Size it with another helping of broccoli and kale, please!  And what a difference that would make.  Take 30 seconds right now to "see" all the people (children and adults) who regularly eat fast food, and then imagine what would be different about their lives if they ate vegetables instead.  Kind of blows you away, doesn't it.

Well, not to get too hung up on the eating habits of others, my job is to eat my greens and make sure my sweeties get all they need.  Since "plarking with the hens" (I could spend all morning puttering in the coop and pen making it cleaner, cozier, cuter, more comfortable and more convenient) is on my Things I get to do today, it takes the form of finding an abundant wealth of salad for the chickens.

Clockwise from 12: Katy, Nina, Latifah, Lena, Nora--green-lovers,  all.

Turns out that "Early Mizuni", an Asian green, is one of the first things to come up in the garden.  It also, and more importantly here, keeps on growing no matter what the weather in the fall and winter.  Even with frost nearly every night now for weeks, "Early Mizuni" seems untouched.  So I supersized them with a huge clump of it--the perfect fast food for hungry hens.